In a series of three issued U.S. Patents we have heretofore described the environment incurred by military munitions devices during their ballistic termination encounter with a target, particularly a hardened target. We have also discussed in these patents the frequent need to study events attending this terminal encounter from of course a safely remote location. These three issued patents are identified as U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,380,906; 6,453,790 and 6,456,240 all of which became known during the year 2002 and all of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein. It is believed helpful in appreciating these three patents as well as the present invention to recognize that the use of moderate power radio frequency communication apparatus in an environment calling for its shock hardening against large physical stresses represents a combination in the technical arts that has remained largely unexplored until recent years. It is possible to attribute this unexplored status to the fact that moderate power radio frequency communications, the use of class “C” nonlinear amplifier stages in such communications and the shock hardening aspects of such apparatus have each been considered to lie in the black art or empirical design arenas and therefore have either been avoided whenever possible or explored in secrecy. Our inventions are believed to represent part of an emergence of this technology.
The occurrence of deceleration forces measuring in the tens of kilo-G or in excess of ten thousand times the force of gravity during a target encounter event i.e., during a probable time of remote study interest, is of course one of the major components of a target encounter environment to be expected in this technology. Another component of this environment is of present interest and concerns a need to limit the temperature excursion incurred in a power semiconductor device employed in communicating data from the moving munitions device to a safely remote location e.g. to limit temperature in a transistor or integrated circuit device included in a telemetry transmitter apparatus embedded in the munitions device. An additional aspect of this environment is the need to limit the physical size and weight of components associated with the invention in order to make them compatible with the space and weight limitations imposed on a ballistic munitions device and the incurred G forces at impact. A yet additional aspect of this environment is the frequent need for a low impedance electrical connection between one or more terminals of a mounted electrical device and a true ground node of the employed electrical circuit.
The present invention is believed to contribute additional knowledge to the art of accomplishing data communication under these unusual environmental conditions and in fact provides a frequently needed component that can be beneficially used in such systems as the communication apparatus described in the incorporated by reference herein patents. The invention is not however limited to use in such environments and may in fact provide utility in other environments including for example routinely encountered static semiconductor device applications.
The present invention therefore addresses the need to mount for example a semiconductor device in order to assure both its physical integrity and its safety from thermal damage during a brief but nevertheless high stress interval of usage. In a situation typical of the presently described military munitions study environment an involved semiconductor device can be for example of the field effect transistor type as is used in the final amplifier stage of a ultra high radio frequency or very high radio frequency transmitter apparatus that receives energization for one quarter of a second during an actual use event extending from before to during an impact of the munitions device with a target. This semiconductor device may also be of the integrated circuit, power diode or other types of semiconductor devices and the invention may in fact also find utility in the mounting of non-semiconductor devices such as power dissipating resistive components and heat dissipating electromechanical devices.